View full sizeExpress-Times Photo | BILL ADAMSRescue workers tend to a woman Wednesday who was run over by a garbage truck in the 600 block of Northampton Street in Easton. The victim, city resident Grace Steckel, was flown to St. Luke’s Hospital.An Easton woman who was pinned beneath a garbage truck in the city's West Ward on Wednesday has lost both her legs, but is expected to recover, her son said this morning.

Joe Shiller, Grace Steckel's son, said his 86-year-old mother is in a drug-induced coma in the intensive care unit at St. Luke's Hospital in Fountain Hill.

Medical tests show Steckel did not receive any internal injuries in the accident, Shiller said doctors have told him.

"She passed away at one point and they brought her back," Shiller said.

Police are trying to piece together exactly how the accident happened. Police did not immediately return a phone message this morning.

Shiller received the news from neighbors who called him while he was in Wilkes-Barre. On the return trip, he received news from a family member that his mother had died. A television news outlet had erroneously reported Steckel died.

"I drove to the hospital thinking she was dead," Shiller said.

Shiller said police have spoken to him about his mother, but did not offer any details about what happened. Shiller said his mother was likely on a routine walk to the Downtown area.

"She walked Downtown a lot ... twice a day or three times a day," Shiller said. "She's a walker. She likes to walk."

Steckel, of the 700 block of Pine Street, was adamant that she live by herself, Shiller said. She took care of her own errands and in the warmer months, cut her own grass.

"Someone who was so active, how is she going to accept this when she wakes up?" Shiller asked.

Steckel is known as the "unofficial block watch captain" because she kept an eye on her son's rental properties and parking lots.

"She is more than spry, she's feisty," Shiller said.

Shiller said his family grew up in Alpha and moved to Easton in the 1970s.